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Chicago Proposes MAN (Metropolitan Area Network)

Posted by Hemos on from the i-got-no-strings-to-hold-me-down dept.

stumble writes: "This article lacks many details, but the idea is that Chicago wants to bring broadband to the masses and is accepting proposals to design and build a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN): 'The project, called CivicNet, is aimed at bringing a broadband network with integrated data, voice and video capabilities to every nook and cranny of Chicago over the next 10 years.'"

3 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. More information about the project by regen · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Metropolitan Planning Council has information about this project from the initial RFI's.

    --
    The Economics of Website Security
  2. Good options now, but could be better by joshv · · Score: 4, Informative

    Chicago already has many broadband options. Ameritech/SBC provides DSL (or another provider resells it), and there is a crazy company (RCN) that came through and re-wired thousands of buildings for their fiber to the telephone pole broadband/cable solution. AT&T "broadband" also might get around to providing data services to a meaningful population of it's Chicago subscribers sometime soon.

    Most of these solutions do lack geographical reach. Good coverage is confined to the mostly affluent and gentrified portions of the city. I doubt even Ameritech, which already has a wire in most houses, has good DSL coverage in lower income areas, it just can't be a priority for them. This is where the city government can provide a much needed impetus. They can provide the motivation to provide a combination of services and locations that might be commercially marginal at best.

    Of course the appearance of high speed internet cafes on the south side of Chicago might backfire on the liberal set, as they find that the locals they hoped to benefit are displaced by yuppies moving in to take advantage of all that cheap bandwidth.

    -josh

  3. Well, it may work, it may not... by irregular_hero · · Score: 5, Informative
    A lot of cities have tried to do this, most of them by setting up interconnections in the local Metro area. For example, in Nashville, Tennessee, the city government actually funded an initiative to interconnect all businesses in the city at a site they co-owned with BellSouth. The goal was to centralize and provide a faster "lane" of access to local citizenry for area businesses.

    It worked like this: a business with an existing Internet connection would be provided another one at a very low cost by the city. The city also provided interconnections to various local ISPs (Sprint, BBN, local ISPs). Then when the user dialed in to the local POPs in each location, each local business would be only 2 or 3 hops away. Interesting idea.

    It failed. Turns out, local city businesses with the desire to operate large Internet business could care less about the access speeds of the communities in which they were located. They dispised the extra complexity the initiative forced upon them, even though part of their "backup line" costs were underwritten. And most of them felt that the government wasn't up to the task anyway. ("It took 4 months to repair the sidewalk in front of my house, and you want me to peer with you? Hah!")

    The second part of the plan was to offer Internet access. But that plan was shot down by a multitude of ISPs that didn't want to compete with a city government that was intent on taxing them anyway. They went to court, and now the whole effort is a distant memory.

    So although it sounds nice, having a city government -- many of whom collect sales taxes from ISPs -- competing against their tax base. Well, it never tends to work out to benefit the citizens in any meaningful way.